Line #22 Headscratchers/BatmanMaskOfThePhantasm


1	* Where's Harley Quinn?
2	** Probably she was [[ShooOutTheClowns too lighthearted a character for this movie]]. In-story, it's possible she was in Arkham at this point and the Joker didn't bother to bust her out. It's pretty evident that he doesn't care about her unless his schemes need the extra help or he could use a human shield. In the movie, he doesn't have anything big planned besides hanging out at the fairgrounds, minding his own business until Valestra calls on him, so why go through the trouble of springing her?
3	** Heh, heh. I get it. ShooOutTheClowns.
4	*** [[DontExplainTheJoke Harley...]]
5	** Or she and Joker were having one of their fights and she was crashing with [[LesYay Ivy]].
6	** The Joker evidently [[{{Squick}} prefers Hazel the robowife.]]
7	*** Nah, they met years before the series starts. There's a first season episode that has Harley in it, too. She doesn't wear the costume, but it's "Joker's Favor," she dresses up as a cop to bring in the cake to the dinner in Gordon's honor.
8	*** The movie doesn't necessarily take place at the same time as the series...
9	*** Oh, good point there. Taking into account the various "pre-Batman" a-ha moments Bruce goes through in the flashbacks (the ninja-like disguise, the prototype Batmobile at the World's Fair, encountering Jack Napier at the Beaumont's home), it looks like he's within the first couple of months of his career...Granted, the presence of the Batwing may or may not scupper this, but [[CrazyPrepared this is Batman we're talking about]]. Remember, Andrea hasn't aged that much either...only a couple of years is [[@/PrimeEvil my]] personal guess. Her hair is still red, yes, but the scar tissue of her father's death is still fresh. Oh, and, ''the people of Gotham, Cmsr. Gordon notwithstanding, still don't know what to do with the Batman.''
10	*** Too bad the movie actually says TEN YEARS.
11	*** I've always liked to imagine that it takes place (obviously out of canon, and with several differences as far as events go) a few months after the events of ComicBook/BatmanYearOne, since there is a scene reminiscent of Batman's run from the police from that book, so Batman's been around for a while, but not long enough to have learned everything yet. He's still working without Robin for one.
12	*** No primary timeline of the movie, Batman has been Batman for ten years as Andrea commented its been ten years since she was last in Gotham, and he becomes Batman right after she leaves. It may take place before the series proper, but its definitely not that much long before and Robin was in COLLEGE. He's not in every episode of the series either. People seem to miss the fact that in the DCAU, Batman has been Batman for quite some time. Robin became his partner when he was 9 and was at least 18 during the series.
13	*** This plothole is discussed in the novelization, where college student Dick Grayson calls Alfred and they discuss things.
14	*** At the very least, it takes place after the episode ''On Leather Wings'', because Harvey Dent is absent for Reed's "Bat bashing" campaign and thus probably already Two-Face.
15	*** Or it can be ''much'' earlier, and Dent might not be the District Attorney just yet.
16	*** But in the "Robin's Reckoning" two-parter, Batman is active while Dick Grayson is still a young boy and Gordon is a Lieutenant who still has red hair. Gordon's dialogue indicates that Batman is fairly new in town ("This Batman's got him real spooked") and this is maybe over ten years before the "present day", where Gordon is gray haired and the Commissioner. Also, one of Reeve's photographs shows him with Hamilton Hill, implying that Hill is a big cheese in town (i.e. already Mayor). With that in mind, it has to take place during, or at least close to, the "present day" of the first two series'. Presumably Dent's absence suggests that he's already became Two-Face and that Robin not being around suggests that he is is in college; Harley could be in Arkham, with Ivy or the events of her becoming a criminal just haven't happened yet.
17	*** Gordon also tells Reeve that Batman doesn't kill and divorces himself from the manhunt for Batman in a tone that suggests a very long working relationship between him and Batman.
18	*** On the other hand, the whole "You want him? You go get him," could mean that he doesn't yet regard Batman as an ally, just as a vigilante who he doesn't want to be bothered tracking down because he does more good than harm.
19	*** The movie MAY take place before the series proper but it definitely takes place within the same timeframe as Andrea straight up says that it has been TEN YEARS. And Batman has been protecting Gotham in the series for about 10 years.
20	*** I always thought the movie was kind of the series’ finale and, as such, the events happened after the last episode.
21	*** I dunno; they turned on Batman ''awfully'' fast when the Phantasm started killing people.
22	*** WordOfGod has [[https://issuu.com/twomorrows/docs/backissue99preview confirmed]] that Harley was excluded from the film because they wanted to keep the Joker as a solo threat and because she wasn't still yet a recurring character, as demonstrated in the episodes "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE41JokersWild Joker's Wild]]" and "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE37TheStrangeSecretOfBruceWayne The Strange Case of Bruce Wayne]]", where the Joker appears but Harley doesn't.
23	** Well for the original question; should be remembered that Harley appers until the Joker's Favor episode, there are like two episodes with the Joker without her, so if the movie happens before the series, then the Joker still hasn't met Harley (or hasn't turn her into her minion yet, as she use to be a doctor in Arkham). On the other hand Harley and the Joker do not end the series together, they split after Harlequinade, Harley seems to be in her way to rehabilitation in Harley's Holiday and the Joker openly says he has "a new girl" in his last episode on the series Make 'Em Laugh, so if the movie events happen after the series last episode (Batgirl's Return) as some fans believe, then again Harley is not with the Joker at that point. And yes both the next series The New Batman Adventures, the crossovers with Superman and the Batman Beyond movie Return of the Joker bring Harley back as his minion/lover, there are still time gaps where the Joker and Harley are separated that can explain her absence from the movie. About the other issue, remember that they already have the Batsignal in the movie so clearly Batman has been working with the police for a time. If the movie is a straight prequel then it can't be too far before Leather Wings (the first episode), but the series finale theory make sense too, the events could be right after the ending of the first series. Maybe that's why Batman is so soar in The New Batman Adventures.
24	** This troper assumes it takes place sometime during the show. The other criminals like Penguin, Catwoman, Two-Face, etc. are either in Arkham, in jail, or just laying low during the whole thing. They each are working on their own plans and probably take advantage of the situation. After all, the entire movie seem to span two-or-three days. Take the episode "Make 'Em Laugh" for an example, which happened while [[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE57ShadowOfTheBatPart1 Gordon was accused of]] [[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE58ShadowOfTheBatPart2 taking bribes]] and during [[Recap/TheAdventuresOfBatmanAndRobinE14RiddlersReform Riddler's apparent reformation]].
25	*** Where has this ever been said? As it stands this sounds more like Wild Mass Guessing than anything else.
26	** The relationship between the movie and the TV show simply has to be viewed as BroadStrokes; the movie is intended to be set in roughly the same universe as the cartoon, but it was also intended to be seen by a wider audience than might have just watched the cartoon, so they played a bit more fast and loose with some of the specific details rather than worrying too much about making sure everything fit nicely together. Basically, the movie is intended to be viewed as a self-contained story on its own terms from the cartoon series, not as a purely interconnected extension of it, so while you can insert the events of the film into the canon of the cartoon and vice versa, you have to be willing to fudge some of the details if you're doing so. In the case of the OP, if you're viewing the film as a stand-alone entity she doesn't exist for the purposes of the film; if you're working it into the canon of the cartoon then she's just elsewhere, either because she hasn't met the Joker yet, or she's in Arkham and he hasn't been bothered to break her out, or he's just doing his own thing.
27
28	* What happened with Andrea and the Joker? He obviously didn't die.
29	** There's a sequel comic that reveals that she let him live because she realized he wasn't really the same person who killed her father, or something along those lines
30	** Actually, the way I heard it, the ground collapsed and they ended up in the sewers where Joker got away (I think this was in the tie-in comic).
31	** What happened was that she was about to kill him, but she hesitated because he had gone so insane and out-of-his-mind, that she wouldn't be killing the man who killed her father at all. He may technically be the same person in body, but not in spirit. And in that moment of hesitation there was another explosion, which hurled them both through the air and sent Joker into the sewer water, where he made his escape.
32	** Andrea appears as the Phantasm in Epilogue, hired by Amanda Waller to kill Terry's father, indicating that she is alive in the future.
33
34	* The effects of the Joker's toxin are a tad...inconsistent. When the Joker gives some to Valestra, he turns up dead. Yet when Arthur Reeves gets a dose he's taking to the hospital in a laughing fit. His doctor sedates him and decides to "let the toxin run its course." Isn't this stuff lethal? And if it is, why did Batman (who is strongly opposed to killing) just leave ''without giving Reeves the cure'' after his interrogation?
35	** Sal Valestra was an old, old man who was already on an oxygen tank--a bad cold probably would've killed him. Arthur is a young and otherwise fit young man. It makes perfect sense that Arthur could survive something that killed an old man.
36	** It also might have been two different toxins, one lethal and one not. The Joker had more use for Valestra dead, but he's such a cruel bastard that he might have thought it more amusing if Reed was alive to have to answer to everyone why the Joker showed up at his office.
37	** Reeves had already been treated for the Joker venom prior to Batman's arrival at the hospital, and had to remain calm, hence being left alone in a darkened room - any stimuli seemed to flare him up again.
38	** As for why Batman didn't cure him, its because Reeves sold out Andrea's dad to the mob under the delusion that they "just want their money back". Also, Batman was probably struck with the realization that Andrea is the Phantasm to avenge her father.
39	** Also, as noted above, the doctors were already treating Reeves. Adding Batman's antidote to the mix might have done more harm than good.
40	** He might have left the antidote with the doctors, who would better know how to use it. But he didn't tell Reeves this because, well, Reeves is a corrupt asshole who has made his life more difficult in lots of ways it turns out, so why give him the comfort?
41
42	* Andrea was just a regular, but in shape, human. The Phantasm suit consisted of cloak, a gas-mask/voice changer, a smoke dispenser, and a blade in each hand. How the hell did she do stuff like dodging multiple bullets in a smokescreen even though your silhouette stands in place, running fast enough to stay ahead of a plane, fitting through a three inch opening in a window, and ''[[OffscreenTeleportation literally teleporting]]''!? MaskPower?
43	** She's as good as Batman.
44	** Since this universe has a device that can freeze time, I don't think a personal teleporter unit is so far fetched.
45	** It's long been fan theory that she was a metahuman with low level defensive powers.
46	** Batman was analyzing and describing a sample of the fog to Alfred at one point, saying it was a complex synthetic polymer he hadn't seen before. The scene quickly shifted focus, but I figured that was the HandWave for her seeming teleportation and bullet dodging tricks: somehow the fog itself might be responsible, perhaps by making her body [[IntangibleMan intangible]] for a few seconds.
47	** In this review of a follow up of the movie ''Mask of the Phantasm'', we see that Andrea really is only a human being who now works as a hired assassin, just as good as Batman sneaking up and disappearing. (The first pages show us how she and the Joker cheated death in the movie ([[http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/WF/batman/motpanniv/reviews/bra/ Batman & Robin Adventures - Annual #1: Shadow of the Phantasm]]).
48	** If you see the scene carefully she does not overruns the plane, the jet catches with her and then passes her, but Batman jumps from the plane so obviously he has to make it go slower. The rest can be explain with technology seen in the series itself, her "teleporting" could be an adaptation of the same invisibility tech that we see in the episode of the invisible man and been bulletproof only requires to have a very good armor.
49	** The invisibility tech actually makes sense, if you check the finale when Andrea and Joker disappear you can still hear the Joker's laugh while they are unseen, as if he's still nearby but invisible.
50	* When The Phantasm is in the opening scene, killing mobsters, but we see Andrea (who we'll find out later is the Phantasm) on a plane, not having yet arrived to Gotham.
51	** We see her on a plane, yes. But we don't know where that plane left ''from''. She could have easily killed those guys, fled the city some other way, and flew in from another airport, or explaining it as a transfer.
52	** She secretly took an early flight to kill only Chuckie Sol. Then left Gotham only to return again and make it seem she arrived for the first time. To throw off any suspicions. Batman figured it out.
53	* In Mask of the Phantasm, Bruce has a flashback to the night he proposed to Andrea. When they get to her house, we see future Joker throw a cigarette at Bruce's car, presumably because he was done with it. Then when Andrea has a flashback to the same moment from her point of view, Joker is lighting up just moments before when he would have been throwing the cigarette. This troper can only imagine it is because the people who are remembering this night are only human, and it was ten years ago, so they are bound to misremember some things.
54	** Maybe he was trying to quit smoking, so he told himself, "I'll light up, but two or three puffs is ''it''."
55	** This is future Joker we're talking about here. He probably just did it to be a dick.
56	* How did Batman clear his name, all the people that could have testified on his behalf were killed by Phantasm and Joker.
57	** He didn't save apparently with Commissioner Gordon for sometime. If you recall the pilot episode for BTAS the police seem all to happy to go after Batman. Sure only Bullock is really gungho about it but even after Gordon keeps telling them to wait, or not fire they don't seem to hesitate much when Bullock gives the order. Given that it's somewhere between difficult and impossible to tell how much time has lapsed between any two episodes (or even in most cases if the episodes are in chronological order) we don't know how long it took for him to patch his relationship with the GCPD. It certainly wasn't sterling by the time they reached P.O.V.
58	** This plot hole was tied up in the novelization. A photographer takes a picture of the Phantasm after the death of Chuckie Sol. Coincidentally, that photographer is the one who meets Andrea on the cruise ship.
59	** Gordon didn't suspect that Batman was behind the killings to begin with, and was vocally opposed to the manhunt against Batman. There was very little evidence that Batman was present at the crime scenes for any other reason than that he was doing what he always does; help out. So Gordon probably had the entire idea scrapped after the killings stopped. Also consider that it was probably pretty hard to keep the case up once they found out that the attorney who suggested the manhunt was trying to cover up the highly-illegal business he did with all of the victims.
60	** The city councilman that was tied into everything talked with the Joker who told him outright it wasn't the Batman. It's likely he told the cops about it later.
61	** Remember how Joker had a camera that recorded the Phantasm saying "Sal Valestra, your angel of death awaits?" and tells her that her face will soon be all over Gotham? That's how.
62	*** No, Joker meant that he'd planted a bomb in the building and the Phantasms' face will be all over town along with (her) limbs etc. Much like how in ''The Dark Knight'' when he's asked where Harvey Dent is and he says that "depending on the time, he could be in one spot "or several". He didn't release the tape to expose the real killer (I mean, why make Batman's life easier?), and we know this because the manhunt continues throughout the movie.
63	*** The Joker thought it ''was'' Batman, and expected the tape to prove his guilt:
64	---->Whoops! Ha! I guess the joke's on me. You're not Batman after all. Looks like there's a new face in Gotham and soon his name will be all over town... to say nothing of his legs, and feet, and spleen, and head...
65	* Why does Batman chase Joker in the end sequence? Surely with all those explosives it would have been safer to leave Joker and get out of there safely?
66	** Several reasons. First of all, he's Batman: He's not about to just let someone (even the Joker) get killed in a massive explosion. Second, it's the Joker: chances are very slim he was at the fair grounds because he made parole. If he survived (which he has a history of doing even in the ugliest scenarios), he'd just be on the loose again, putting more people in danger. Last but not least, he just found out that this guy is indirectly responsible for the cancellation of the wedding engagement that might have saved him from becoming Batman, so the Joker probably had an ass-kicking with his name on it.
67	*** And lastly, he killed Andrea's father, which led the woman he loved into a dark path.
68	* If it's commons knowledge that Joker is Jack Napier, wouldn't Bruce know that Napier had worked for Valestra back in the day?
69	** Not if he was working for Valestra under an alias. Apparently Joker's had a lot of them. Even Jack Napier may be one.
70	* Okay Carl, you done a bad, bad thing and embezzled money from mobsters who are going to slaughter you and your daughter like chickens. Good thing she just got engaged to the richest man in Gotham who is a nice, moral guy with a strong sense of justice and duty! I'm sure he'll be happy to lend you the money... Oh, you'd rather run to Greece, huh? Not even going to bother asking? Your choice. Dumbass.
71	** Yes, because moral, upstanding guys with strong senses of justice are totally cool with ''handing money over to mobsters''. If he'd gone to Bruce, Bruce would have gone to the police, which ''still'' ends up ruining Carl at best.
72	** Bruce probably would have helped the father of his life's love. But Carl Beaumont probably didn't know that. Remember, the "Bruce Wayne" in the public eye is a billionaire playboy and a savvy businessman. Beaumont probably assumed that Bruce would run to the police or use the plea for help as an opportunity for Wayne Enterprises to take over his company.
73	** And he considered it worse than losing his life and his daughter's? Dumbass indeed.
74	** HonorBeforeReason. Yeah, some people ''would'' consider public disgrace, the messy destruction of everything they'd worked to achieve and ''still'' possibly getting himself and his daughter brutally killed by mobsters in the far-from-unlikely event that it ''simply didn't work'' to be worse than just, well, skipping out of town.
75	* I understand Andrea's revenge scheme, but why does she start [=NOW=]? Why after all these years did she decide to start her revenge scheme at this particular point in time? Was there some catalyst I'm unaware of?
76	** There's no reason given for the timing. Possibly it took her time to set up her alibis, equipment, and her own training.
77	** Andrea's plan included shifting the blame to her dad as a fallback. She had to do it while he could conceivably kill them, since he'd be mid 50s when the movie happens.
78	* Speaking of Andrea's revenge scheme, why would she set her father up as the Phantasm (mimicking his voice)? Why frame the man whose death you are avenging? Let's assume his funeral was held in secret and no one knew about it except her, why would she smear his reputation and name.
79	** She probably blames him for what happened to her just as much as she wants to avenge him. She wants to make ''everyone'' who ruined her life with Bruce pay -- the mobsters that her father owed money to, the hitman who killed him, and even her father himself for dealing with them in the first place.
80	** She may have felt that making her father's voice the last thing her victims heard added an extra touch to her revenge. There's also the ruthlessly pragmatic element of [[DeceasedFallGuyGambit blaming someone who is beyond consequences]].
81	** It's also making it not just her revenge, but her father's revenge by proxy. Besides, as mentioned above, he's dead. It's not like anyone can throw him into jail for it.
82	** Also, if his death is not generally known, pinning suspicion on him has the extra advantage of leading the authorities on a wild goose chase.
83	** If her targets recognized Phantasm's voice as Carl Beaumont's, they'd probably be even more scared and believed it's a real phantasm. Any targets who might've escaped could go after the Joker to check if he really killed Carl.
84	* Why does Valestra goes to see the Joker alone? He's a mafia boss meeting a well known unpredictable serial killer, why not to take some bodyguards with him?
85	** Likely to avoid making Joker feel insulted that Valestra didn't trust him enough to be alone. That and he was probably banking on Joker's known rivalry with Batman to supersede any other threat the Clown Prince of Crime posed.
86	** Another possibility is that the bodyguards were afraid of the Joker, and either [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere outright refused to go]] or showed such obvious reluctance that Valestra offered to [[LineInTheSand let them stay behind]] in a (failed) attempt to shame them.
87	** That or Valestra had the typical "reputable businessman" appearance and didn't want witnesses to compromise himself.
88	** It's also pretty clear that, while he's still wealthy, Valestra's glory days are well behind him. He may not even have body guards anymore, either because he's out of the game entirely (he seemed to be minding his own business before he realized all his own goons were getting killed) or because money's too tight these days to have anyone in his employ and still enjoy a rich lifestyle.
89	** Also, just plain and simple desperation. Either the Joker ''might'' kill him, or the terrifying shadowy skull-faced monster-assassin working through his associates under cover of night will ''definitely'' kill him. Better the devil you know, and such.
90	* Why Valestra didn't think of leaving any of his henchmen spying near the Beaumont residence to check that they didn't leave the town? It was pretty clear that Carl wasn't going to be able to pay them back by the next day, so him running away from Gotham was very likely to happen. I think Valestra should have left someone near the house to report him if Carl and Andrea did something suspicious, like running away from the house with suitcases.
91	** The [[https://www.scriptslug.com/assets/scripts/batman-mask-of-the-phantasm-1993.pdf screenplay]] actually fills in this plot hole this during Andrea's flashback. Valestra left Jack Napier behind to stand watch over the Beaumont estate just in case Carl tried to make a run for it. Carl and Andrea made their getaway during a moment of brief distraction on Napier's part. It appears the full sequence was either never animated, or deleted from the film's final cut.
92	* How the Joker even managed to enter into the building where Arthur Reeves' office was? He is a deranged and wanted criminal!!! I don't think that he simply walked to the building, entered as if nothing and went up the stairs or took the elevator just like that without anyone raising the alarm...
93	** He could have snuck in, since he told Arthur he wouldn't want anyone wondering why the Joker was visiting him. Besides, he could have just ran out before the cops show up after getting what he needed to know.
94	** In the scene, he's wearing a trench coat and wide-brimmed hat. It's conceivable that he could have slipped through any crowded areas unrecognized with the hat tilted down and the coat's collar popped up.
95	** Also... ''because'' he's a deranged and wanted criminal. You do something to try and stop the Joker from getting to where he's going, alert the authorities to his presence or which just happens to get him to notice you, there's a greater than zero chance that five minutes later you're lying dead on the floor with your jaw locked into a terrifying rictus grin forever and your entire family is murdered before the day is out. Much safer to keep your head down, let him go about his business without giving him any reason to realise you exist, and ''then'' call the police when he's very, very far away from you.
96	* Why was Batman being rude to Alfred when he asked him if he plans to reunite with Andrea after clearing his name? Is it because Alfred's right but Batman is just too focus on "the mission", so he denies it?
97	** He probably thought Bruce's personal feelings are clouding his judgement.
98	** Also, to be fair to Bruce, Andrea is a bit of a sore subject with him; lost loves who broke your heart by cancelling your engagement and disappearing, leaving you with nothing but to become a vigilante of the night tend to have that effect. He probably doesn't particularly appreciate Alfred bringing her up at all, much less using her as an opportunity to nag him about stopping being Batman, even if it's well-meant. Especially since it turns out he would have been perfectly happy to not be Batman and marry her; she was the one who broke it off, not him, so Alfred implicitly acting like it was his fault (even if unwittingly) is probably just rubbing salt into the wound.
99	* Did Andrea ever found out that her old friend Arthur Reeves was the one who sold them out?
100	** A tie-in comic reveals that she did but by the time of the end of Mask of the Phantasm, she finally given up in getting revenge.
101	* How does the scene in Andrea's apartment make sense? She needs to get him out asap. But why does she think it's logical to act like a bitter ex? Like ''she's'' the one with a reason to hold a grudge? Andrea knows that from Bruce's perspective, ''she'' dumped ''him''. Why isn't Batman confused by her attitude, acting like he broke her heart when she's the one who broke his? Her choice of character doesn't make sense, and Batman acting like it's so natural doesn't make sense. And why did she want to hurt him with that overly affectionate act with Arthur? She has no reason to have a grudge against Bruce -- again, he didn't break her heart. Neither the real Andrea nor the fake one she pretends to be had a motive for doing that.
102	** She may not be bitter at Bruce specifically, but she's bitter enough about the whole situation to lash out. Batman, despite his own emotional issues, knows how people behave well enough to understand that.
103	** Also, you just answered your own question here, really. ''She needs to get him out ASAP''. So the more she acts like a bitter ex-girlfriend who is unreasonably cruel, bitchy and nasty to Bruce / Batman despite ''him'' being the more wronged party in their relationship, the quicker he'll think "screw this, this woman's a massive asshole" and ''leave''.
104	* "It's got to be one or the other, I can't have it both ways. I can't put myself on the line as long as there's someone waiting for me to come home." Wasn't this attitude already dated at the time? {{Battle Couple}}s weren't a new thing. This idea that if Bruce wanted to be a hero, his wife would either not know or be sitting at home completely uninvolved, is just taken for granted despite... feeling so foreign to fiction at the time and before. He never even considers telling Andrea his dream and getting her opinion or advice on it.
105	** It's less to do with the writers and more to do with Batman himself. And it's not like this is [[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS1E5ThisLittlePiggy the first time]] that he's shown this [[ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies attitude]] either.

Context Headscratchers / BatmanMaskOfThePhantasm